The Tiger Among Us

by Leigh Brackett

  And the phone sat on its table as dead and cold and disinterested as though it had never rung in its life.

  I went to sleep.

  I had no intention of doing it and I don't know when it happened. But I must have slept, because all of a sudden I woke up with a wild yell, jumping halfway out of my chair, in a lather of sweat.

  And the phone was ringing.

  I answered it. An operator said she had a call from Newbridge, Pennsylvania, for a Mr. Walter Sherris. I said I was speaking, and she told her party to go ahead.

  For a minute there was nothing but the hum of an open line, and a sound as of someone breathing a long way otf. Then there was a voice.

  "Do you still want to know who beat you up?" it said. It was a young, uncertain voice. It had fear in it, so much fear that I was almost afraid to answer, lest I scare it away.

  "Yes," I said. "I do."

  "There was one of the gang that never touched you, Mr. Sherris, remember. Remember, Mr. Sherris?"

  "I remember."

  "That was me. I never wanted to hurt anybody. Listen, I can tell you a lot of things if you'll help me. I need help, Mr. Sherris."

  He sounded as though he did. "I'll help you," I said. "I haven't anything against you."

  "That isn't what Chuck said. He said I was just as guilty as the rest, and you'd put me right in jail with them."

  "Chuck was wrong," I said. Sweat was running down my back and my heart was hammering. Please God, I thought, let me not say the wrong thing and queer it.

  The voice spoke in my ear, strained, quivering, with an underlying note of hysteria all ready to break.

  "You might just be saying that to get hold of me. I want to talk to you. But I got to be sure. I don't want to hang, Mr. Sherris. I'm not guilty of any of it, and I don't want to hang."

  Now he was crying. Not exactly like a child and not like a man, either. It was a pitiful sound.

  "What shall I do," I asked, "to show you I mean what I say?"

  He got his voice steadied again, with an effort.

  "You be on the Diamond here in Newbridge at ten-thirty. Walk around. That's all. Walk around. If you're all alone, no cops with you, nobody, then I'll talk to you. I got to be sure, Mr. Sherris. Please don't try anything."

  That please got me.

  "I won't," I said. "But I'll give you a tip. Chuck's out for blood. He tried to kill me Monday afternoon and he threatened me again yesterday, and you know what he'll do to you if he finds you. So be careful. Real careful."

  I didn't mention that the police were also looking for him. I didn't dare.

  "Why do you think I'm doing this?" he whimpered. "Sometimes I think I'd rather hang than have him and Roy after me. Wear something so I'll know you."

  "That's easy," I said. "A brace on my left leg, and a cane. You'll know me. Ten-thirty, on the Newbridge Diamond."

  He was gone.

  And now I had a choice, I could call the police and ask them to arrange with the Newbridge police to stake out the Diamond and try to catch Bill when he came. And maybe they would catch him and maybe they wouldn't. Maybe he would take fright and run away for good, feeling that I had betrayed him and it was no use. Maybe there would be one of those unhappy accidents that do occur, and Bill would get himself shot, and that would be a lovely thing to remember for the rest of my life.

  Or I could go quietly over to Newbridge and meet Bill the way he wanted it.

  I could see several reasons for doing it that way. I wanted him to co-operate, and he wouldn't if he was afraid. I wanted to keep him out of trouble. And I wanted him to give himself up voluntarily. It would look a lot better than an arrest.

  l couldn't see any reason for not doing it his way except a consideration for my own safety, but I certainly was not afraid of Bill, and I didn't see how I would be in any more danger on the Diamond in Newbridge than I was anywhere else. Unless Chuck had a crystal ball in good working order, there was no way he could know I was going there. At least I couldn't think of any.

  I picked up the phone and dialed White's number. Andy answered.

  "Listen, Andy," I said, "I got my call. After I'm gone, will you call Tracey and tell her that, and tell her I'm liable to be very late indeed, but everything's working out fine."

  "She'll want to know where you're going."

  "And you don't know, because I'm not telling you. I'm afraid Tracey would yell for the police and spoil everything. That's why you're calling her instead of me. Okay? I'm going now."

  "Okay," said Andy dubiously. "I'll watch you out."

  There was no sight or sound of anything suspicious. I went out of Laurel Terrace Drive the way I came, the long way round. I had plenty of time. The night was cloudy, and the neighborhood too splendidly suburban for adequate street lighting. If there was any car following me, it was too far back to be seen. There were no headlights, anyway.

  I angled over to a north-south through route and came down onto 422, the Newbridge road, east of town but not far enough east to suit me. I passed the curve where Finelli was killed. I passed the strip mine where Artie Clymer had died. An ill-omened road, I thought, and wished that I had picked some other way to go.

  There were headlights behind me now, but that was natural. 422 is a public highway, and people do use it.

  I kept reassuring myself that there was no logical way in which Chuck could have caught up with me. He would not waste his precious days keeping watch over an empty house. He could not afford to. And it was asking too much of coincidence that he should have accidentally happened to see me go by somewhere. I had come to have an almost superstitious fear of the boys. It was understandable, but foolish.

  Nevertheless, I kept an eye on the rearview mirror.

  I did not see anything alarming. Just headlights. Occasionally a pair would catch up to me and then go by, and every time this happened I got nervous pangs in the belly. I couldn't help it, and it made me angry. It's because I'm so close to the end, I thought. In fifteen or twenty minutes I'll meet Bill and we'll have him safe. There isn't a thing to worry about. This is merely the irrational fear you get, say, when you have decided to take out an insurance policy and are suddenly certain that you will get hit by a truck or struck by lightning before the papers are signed.

  I drove on down the dark road, and the headlights, the innocent headlights, came behind me.

  I got into Newbridge well before ten-thirty and parked on the Diamond in front of the post office. Mall's Ford has a square with a Civil War monument in it consisting of a pillar inscribed with the names of battles, and topped by the iron figure of a soldier. Newbridge has a diamond with a Civil War monument in it. Newbridge is smaller than Mall's Ford and less heavily industrial. Newbridge is in Pennsylvania and Mall's Ford is in Ohio. Otherwise there is not much difference.

  I looked carefully around but I could not see anything except the normal traffic and the normal number of people on the sidewalk. I got out of the car and began to walk slowly around the Diamond.

  By the third or fourth time I had made the circuit I was beginning to feel silly and conspicuous. I had studied the window displays in the gents' clothing store, the furniture store, the appliance store, and the credit jeweler's, until I was afraid I would get picked up for loitering.

  I was also getting worried. There was no sign of a tall thin frightened boy who wanted to talk to me.

  I went round again, past the hotel, the corner tavern, the dairy store, the Congregational church, the newsstand where they would shine your shoes and block your hat, the post office, and back to the hotel. Four or five men standing in front of the tavern looked at me as I passed, obviously wondering what the hell I was up to. There was an alley beside the hotel. I crossed it slowly, having about made up my mind to go back to the tavern and let Bill find me there if he wanted me.

  Then somebody spoke to me.

  I turned and looked down the alley, narrow between its walls of brick, the rough sunken pavement holding a greasy glimmer from the ligh
t that leaked in from the streets at both ends. There were doorways in the brick walls, closed, showing as arches of blacker shadow, like niches in an abandoned church.

  Someone was standing in one of those niches, speaking my name.

  21

  I TURNED and walked down the alley. The dim figure remained huddled in its niche, waiting, I suppose, to make sure no one came into the alley after me.

  No one did, and after a minute the figure ventured out to join me. It was tall and skinny, with a kind of furtive stoop to the narrow shoulders.

  "Mr. Sherris," it said.

  "Yes," I said. "Hello, Bill."

  The light from the corner struck tentatively on his face. His eyes were wide and stary, with dark smudges around them. His features were thin and masculine, but they were his mother's features even so. Perhaps the resemblance was stronger than usual because of the state of emotion they were both in. It was not in any way a bad face. Very young even for its age, not too blazingly brilliant, and reflecting no great strength of character, the face of the sheep and not of the shepherd, but not bad. He caught his breath in between his teeth and started to speak and then didn't. It seemed that now he had me he didn't know what to do with me.

  "I'm all alone," I said, "and I meant what I told you. This isn't a very good place to talk; where can we go?"

  I was in a fidget lest the cop on the beat should see us and get curious. Bill looked nervously up and down the alley. People went by on the streets at both ends, but otherwise nothing moved.

  "Let's just walk around," he said. "Can't we do that?"

  He was still afraid of a trap. And he was plain afraid, period. You could hardly expect him, under the circumstances, to make perfect sense. Seventeen is a poor age for a moment of decision upon which your whole future depends.

  "Let's walk out of here, anyway," I said. "We'll attract too much attention hanging around in alleys. Go ahead, you lead."

  He began to walk away from the Diamond toward the far end of the alley. He was wearing blue jeans and a jacket, both very dirty and rumpled. The pockets of the jacket bulged, probably with what belongings he had brought with him. He looked as though he had been sleeping in barns and ditches.

  On impulse, I said, "Are you hungry?"

  He hesitated and then admitted that he was. "I been saving my money. I haven't got much and I thought I might need it."

  "You pick the place," I said. "I'll buy. And that's better than trying to talk in the street."

  Once more he glanced around, but there was no sign of pursuit. "There's a lunchroom around the corner," he said. "They stay open late."

  We went to the lunchroom. It was one of those long narrow holes with a counter at one side and a cramped row of booths along the other. It smelled horribly of stale grease, but it was Bill's stomach, not mine. There were very few customers. We sat down in one of the booths and I ordered coffee and told the counterman to bring Bill anything he wanted.

  He wanted hamburgers, and while they were being made we sat in uneasy silence, he staring covertly at my face and keeping his own averted, shy and stricken in the hard glare of the light. He had insisted on sitting where he could watch the door, and from time to time he glanced that way, past my head and over the back of the booth.

  All at once tears came into his eyes and his chin, patchy with unshaven fuzz, began to quiver.

  "I should have gone for help that night," he said. "Just not hurting you wasn't enough."

  "You're damn right," I said.

  "I was scared. Honest to God, Mr. Sherris, I didn't know they were going to do what they did. I kept thinking they'd stop, but it seemed like once they got started——"

  "Yes," I said. "I know."

  The hamburgers came. He sat looking at them as though he had forgotten what they were.

  "Go ahead and eat," I told him. "That's all over and done. You've got to think now and you can't do it well on an empty stomach."

  Hunger got the better of him. He began to wolf down the food. When he was through with that I ordered more. It worked like magic. Visibly he relaxed and the gaunt twisted look in his face softened. When he reached the last hamburger I decided he was in shape to talk to.

  "Do you trust me now?" I asked him. "Do you believe I'm playing fair with you?"

  "I guess so," he said. "Yes."

  "Well, you ought to," I told him, "because the police have been looking for you since yesterday, Adolph."

  I was all ready to reach over and grab him if he tried to run. He didn't. He stiffened in his seat and the scary look came back into his eyes, but he stayed.

  I explained to him exactly what the situation was and how it had come about, where he stood, and what the other boys were doing.

  "You may have got out of touch these last five days," I said. "Did you know the body was found in the strip mine?"

  He was white around the gills again. He seemed to shrink and double up in his seat.

  "I saw it in a paper," he said. "It mentioned your name. That's when I made up my mind to call you. But you weren't there. I knew I ought to warn you what Chuck would do." He put his hands up over his face. "That's been the trouble all along, Mr. Sherris. I've known every minute what I ought to do. I was just too scared."

  "Do you know what you ought to do?"

  "Yes."

  "Are you going to do it?"

  He took his hands away from his face and looked at me. His eyes were blue. They were not particularly beautiful in size, color, or shape, but they should have been clear and zestful, a boy's eyes in a boy's face. They were not. They were old and haunted. They were tired. They were heartbreaking. If I had hated him as much as the others before I could not have been able to hate him then.

  "Will they hang me," he asked, "Mr. Sherris?"

  I shook my head. "I won't say you're not in trouble, Bill. But it's more Chuck's worry. He did run Finelli off the road, didn't he?"

  Bill shivered. "He was driving. We were all crazy, account of what had happened. Scared. You know. I saw this other car following us away from the strip mine, and Chuck saw it too. All of a sudden Chuck swerved over and slammed on the brakes, and the other car had to swing out to keep from hitting us. It went right off the curve, fast. Roy went down to see if the man was dead—— It was Roy killed the man in the strip mine. He's kind of nuts. He likes to hurt people. He hit the man too hard."

  Bill started to get up. "I'm sick," he said. "I shouldn't have eaten all those hamburgers."

  "Sit down," I told him, and he sat. "You're not going to be sick, you haven't time for that. Listen, Bill. You ran away——"

  "They said they'd kill me if I ever told anybody. They said I'd hang. And there were two men dead."

  "You ran away," I said, "but you didn't run very far. You had courage enough for that, Bill. You had courage enough to call me. You know what you're going to do, don't you? You've really known ever since Sunday morning but you've been stalling it off. Isn't that so?" '

  He thought about it, searching my face with those ancient eyes.

  "I guess so," he said at last. And then, "Will you help me, Mr. Sherris? I didn't help you. I got no right to ask it, I know that. But I thought if you'd tell the police I never touched you——"

  "They already know that. I'll do all I can for you, Bill, but what you do is the most important. If you go to the police voluntarily and tell them a straight story, they'll listen to you."

  "If I don't," he said, apparently voicing a thought he had had many times before, "there'll be other men dead——" He sighed and went slack in his seat, all the tension run out of him. "I'm awful tired. I haven't really slept good for four months. I guess I don't care if they do hang me, so long as I'm rid of Chuck and them. Let's go."

  "Good," I said. "But there's one thing you've got to do first."

  I went and paid for the hamburgers and got some change. When I motioned Bill he got up like an obedient rag doll and followed me back to a telephone that was on the wall behind the row of booths.
>
  I got long-distance and asked for the Mall's Ford number. I could hear the phone ringing for about as long as it would take to wake up an uneasy sleeper and let her get downstairs. Then Marthe Liebendorffer answered.

  "This is Sherris," I said, "and I've got somebody here that wants to talk to you."

  I handed the phone to Bill.

  He didn't have much to say, except that he was all right and had been all right and was going to be all right, and to tell Mom he was sorry if she had worried. I could hear Marthe's voice, but not what she said. Bill said, "I know, I know, I'm sorry." I took the phone back before he started to cry. Marthe, on the other end, was already doing it.

  "Listen," I said, "will you call somebody at Headquarters—I don't know who you can get at this hour, but it doesn't matter—and tell them we're on our way? Tell them your brother is coming in voluntarily. Will you do that? And then call my wife at the Ohio Hotel and tell her I'm okay."

  She said she would do that, and sobbed, and then I could hear her calling to her mother that it was Adolph and he was all right. She said something more to me that I couldn't understand and hung up. I hung up, too, and turned around.

  "Okay," I said. "Let's go."

  Bill was standing facing the door and the single window in the front. He was staring that way, his mouth hanging open and his eyes absolutely blank with terror.

  "For God's sake," I said. "What is it?"

  "Somebody was looking in at us," he said. "I thought it was Bobby Stillman."

  22

  I LOOKED at the window and the glass door. They were empty now, showing nothing but the street and the dimly lighted store fronts on the opposite side, the occasional car, the occasional passer-by.